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Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Email client loop

In an effort to escape the clutches of Microsoft email, I spent the last 10 days testing other possibilities. Looks like I'll be ending up back with Outlook Express.

First stop was Opera Mail, which was too integrated with the browser for my comfort level and not riveting enough otherwise to keep my attention. Next up was Eudora. It looks great, but free versions lack the ability to create multiple "accounts" and I'm reluctant to pay $50 to gain that ability. Conceptually, Pegasus, my penultimate stop, appeared ideal, but coherently managing users, identities, and network connections for several email addresses made my head spin. Support and manuals cost a bit less than Eudora, and even though it's more tempting to send money to a guy in New Zealand, I want to be able to make an email client work before paying for it.

What a discouraging pleasure to open OE and have it do what it does so well, with a minimum of fuss and no learning curve.

Until I get some advice on Pegasus, I'm sticking with the familiar. What do you know about the flying horse?

UPDATE 15 OCT

A Eudora-Thunderbird alliance code-named Penelope, which will presumably lead to an open-source email client with strong characteristics, might just provide that avenue away from Outlook, but it'll be some time before it's ready. On the other hand, my Thunderbird experience, like Netscape's email client, left me cold; maybe synergy with Eudora will defrustrify the product.